Countywide : 3 Are Appointed to County HIV Panel

Two health-care professionals with backgrounds in nursing and serving low-income patients, and a veteran of the criminal justice system were appointed this week to the county HIV Planning Advisory Council.

The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the Health Care Agency nominations of nursing professor Evelyn Ruiz Calvillo, clinic administrator Harvey De Meneces and physician Gregory T. Ochoa to the council.

The council, which now has 38 of its 40 members, was created last year after Orange County’s 2,000th recorded AIDS case, a benchmark that made the county eligible for funds under the federal Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resource Act.

The council distributes those federal funds to organizations in Orange County and advises the county health officer on HIV and AIDS issues. There were 2,725 AIDS cases on record in Orange County as of May 31, and estimates of HIV-positive cases countywide range from 8,000 to 14,000, said Dr. Penny Weismuller, county disease control director.

Calvillo, 50, of Yorba Linda, is a registered nurse and associate professor at Cal State Los Angeles. Her background also includes research at UCLA in the 1980s focusing on cross-cultural nursing issues related to women and AIDS education.

De Meneces, 53, of Garden Grove, has worked for 18 years in the criminal justice system, and since 1983 has been owner and operator of the My Break Transitional Center, which contracts work from the U.S. Department of Justice. My Break is a 43-bed community corrections center in Garden Grove that houses soon-to-be released federal prisoners and helps them find work and a place to live.

Ochoa, 36, of Los Angeles, is the medical director and primary physician at the Santa Ana branch of Clinica Medica General, which he said provides general clinical care to a largely low-income, uninsured clientele. Ochoa, a graduate of UCLA medical school, has headed the clinic since it opened Feb. 22 as the first Clinica Medica General in Orange County.